Re: ISSUE-76: Need feedback on splitting Microdata into separate specification

Sam Ruby wrote:
> ...
> A decision[1] was made to publish a WD including Microdata.  More than 
> ample time was given for everybody to object, and in fact a number of 
> objections were raised and dealt with.
> 
> While no formal assessment of consensus or final decisions on packaging 
> (same spec, split specs) were made, as far as the content goes, the WG 
> made decisions to publish both Microdata and RDFa as WDs.
> ...

The inclusion of microdata into HTML5 has been controversial since the 
day it appeared in the spec.

The related tracker issue was opened on August 10: 
<http://www.w3.org/html/wg/tracker/issues/76>

The first WG draft that included Microdata was, as far as I recall, 
published on August 25 (<http://www.w3.org/TR/2009/WD-html5-20090825/>).

Furthermore, publishing WDs was sold as "being needed for meeting the 
heartbeat requirement".

So, for the record: I believe that Microdata does not belong into HTML5, 
and I believe I have said so since the moment it was included. The fact 
that I did not object to publishing a snapshot as Working Draft does 
*not* indicate that I was ok with including Microdata at that point.

Best regards,

Julian